A Locust Plague Sweeping Africa, Middle East

By James Donahue

November 2004

The media isn’t giving it much attention but there is a plague of locusts . . . some say of Biblical proportions . . . sweeping Northern Africa and the Middle East.

This swarm of desert locusts may even be more significant than the one described in the Old Testament. The locust plague that bothered the Pharaohs during the time of the Biblical hero character named Moses, according to the Old Testament story, only gobbled up crops in Egypt.

This one is doing a lot more damage. And early reports suggest that the problem may be around for a few years.

One report said the locusts built up their numbers because of heavy rains in the areas of the little nations of Mauritania, Senegal, Niger and Mali, Africa. Then they moved north into Morocco, Algeria and Libya.

High winds aloft were blamed this fall for carrying the pests in thick clouds over Egypt and then as far east as Israel and north to Jordan.

Unlike the ancient Pharaohs, modern farmers in the area are equipped with pesticides to fight the invasion, but even the aerial application of powerful chemicals is doing little to stave off the advancing hordes of bugs. And they are eating every growing thing in sight.

This insect, known as the Sahel Desert Locust, has been closely monitored for the past two years because of the heavy rain patterns that swept the area. Agricultural experts warned early this year that the locusts were gathering in large numbers and there was danger of a swarm.

This breed of locust is one of the most feared of its kind in the world. An outbreak in 1988-89 spread throughout Northern Africa and then spread through the Middle East and into Asia. That swarm impacted one fifth of the land mass of the Earth.

Because of the large land mass these large locusts can infest in such a short time, chemical control is not only difficult, but costly.

Thus pestilence, one of the Biblical warnings concerning the “end times,” is a very real problem. The Mother Earth is striking back in her own way. She is going for the food crops of the masses that attack her environment.